Thursday, April 1, 2010

Bloggiversary Celebrations Ahoy Ahoo Ahee

Today is my second bloggiversary.* Wahey.

Truth be told, I feel more forlorn than an amputee hairdresser who’s just had his entire collection of scissors, brushes, hair laquer, and specialised bionic limb attachments crushed underfoot by a gang of sneering skinheads.

And look! I’ve ascended higher, faster, and more perilously up the Ladder of Abject Misery than an actress who’s devoted the whole of her career to playing a much-loved character in a soap, only to discover at the age of 85, scant weeks before the Bafta ceremony, that her services are no longer required on account of her “looking like sicked-up portion of tripe, acting like a concussed drunk, and smelling like the underside of a particularly dirty horse”.

To add insult to injury, if, on this specialest day of days, aliens should invade and demand the pickled head of the Earth’s Most Miserable Wretch, the ease with which the majority of my fellow men and women would reach a decision resulting in every single finger of every single member of the human race being pointed at my sorry backside, accompanied by loud cries of, ‘HIM! HIM! HIM! HE’S THE ONE!’could be equalled only by the sense of disappointment felt by a captive elephant tossed a bun containing a flavour of jam it didn’t much care for at a time when a rare trunk and tongue paralysing disorder had rendered it incapable of separating said jam from said bun without monkeys in the neighbouring enclosure mocking it relentlessly.

The reason?In two whole years of blogging, I have attracted unto my person but 35 followers.Setting aside the whole question of precisely why my megalomaniac utterings have failed to secure the adoration of millions that is my birthright, I’m beginning to wonder what this says about those of you who’ve publicly hitched a ride thus far.

Averaged out over two years, thirty five followers makes roughly 72% of a person a month. [Note — it doesn’t, of course. It makes 1.45%. But I wrote out what follows late last night on the basis of three years, and as it’s relatively amusing, I’m leaving it in. Go ahead — taunt me for being a fool.] So...Averaged out over two years, thirty five followers makes roughly 72% of a person a month. Maybe you’re all amputee hairdressers, using the comments trail as a covert cyberspace meeting place to discuss your plans for world domination using the fabled Coiffure Code. Or maybe half of you have only one leg, while the rest make up for the imbalance caused by your colleagues’ 25% body mass loss by possessing 3% more of appendages you’re rather fond of? Or maybe all but a dozen of you are merely single organs, cells, while the remaining twenty three pulsate as a trio of Graft Beasts in a multi-limbed, multi-headed, multi-skinned celebration of shameless horror?

I wouldn’t care to speculate.What I’m absolutely certain of (and stunned near to unconsciousness by) is that there are so many people out there with more followers than myself whose current lofty flitterings amongst the Ludicrously Adored Praiseworthy are owed to their having done seemingly next to nothing at all.

Take that Fairyhedgehog, for instance. 75 followers — and all she does is talk about cats.

Or what about Writtenwyrdd? She doesn’t display her figures, but we all know she’s got followers, and at dead of night, retrieves them from her secret hidey hole and polishes them, talks to them, pets them.

As for Kiersten freaking White, she’s got 630, and all she’s managed is to bag herself a three book deal with Harper Teen and engage, for two whole years, in the continuous sporting of healthy looking hair.

Which kind of begs the question — hey, all you people out there who don’t know what the hell you’re missing, WHAT DO YOU WANT? BLOOD?

It worked for the Romans, after all. According to my research, two hours before any gladiatorial contests in mainland Italy circa lunchtime, volunteer centurions were sent into the streets carrying monstrous sandwich boards made out of those bulky rectangular shields of theirs. In the same way that town criers of medieval England would later shout, ‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’, they would bang their shields with ornamental brass spatulas (or spatulanorae), and holler (in Latin), ‘hey, all you people out there who don’t know what the hell you’re missing, WHAT DO YOU WANT? BLOOD?’ — at which point every Tom, Dick and Harrae for miles around would make a toga-clad beeline for the nearest colosseum, there to partake of the zestiest intestine hurling festival history would ever know till Alice Cooper played live in LA in 1973 after consuming two rancid hamburgers and an undercooked pork schnitzel.

And as I always say when my manic episodes tail off and give way to common sense: What’s good enough for Julius Caesar is good enough for me. PUNK.

So here’s the deal. Over the coming weeks and months I’m planning to engage in a series of spectacular online stunts (likely to be in the form of regular posts — hey, I’m no Evel Knievel**) in order to draw in a few more people. The more people there are, the more fun this gets. When I’ve amassed a gleeful horde that matches exactly twice the number of months I’ve been blogging — a unique celestial phenomena on a par with 01/11/10***, a conjunction of all the planets in the solar system, and George Michael having a proper bloody shave — the follower responsible for erecting, then crossing, this rubycon will be awarded a special Abysswinksback crap crap crap crap crap prize.

So — a competition for someone who can’t possibly know they’re entering it, to be held on an unspecified date, with unknown numbers of cartoon mice jumping up and down in the background cheering, ‘Ahoy! Ahoo! Ahee!’ Perfect!

With any luck, it will be latvialovedoll1877.

*Bloggiversary? Whoever got that one started deserves a kick in the teeth. With a pick axe.

** And this is not for want of courage, note. I just hate wearing flappy trousers.

*** Which, like most BBC broadcasts, will not air in the US due to them insisting on writing out the numbers the wrong way round.

43 comments:

Now look, Whirl. You may have fewer followers than Kiersten, when all she's done is to get a fabulous three-book deal from a major publisher, but we make up in quality what we lack in numbers.

I see that you've sussed out that we're using your comments trails as a cover for our clandestine activities but you're quite wrong about the hairdresser bit. We're secret cat fanciers working underground to get felines into Crufts. It's a worthy cause.

Hog So Spiky And Fey, It Fair Makes My Eyes WeepFelines at Crufts would be a spectacular sight to behold. Two thousand enraged Persians vs twice that number of pampered poodles in a battle to the death over a sumptuous hand-knitted cushion...

JJFairy a zombie? Heavens, no — it was her birthday the other day and she was only wandering round the place, zonked out with her arms stretched in front of her, because she was p*ssed.

StacyI feel like an undersea rock awaiting the suck of benevolent barnacles. As for Kiersten, maybe there's a joint voice post in the offing, some co-written spuriosity. That's all I can think of for now — unless I'm barred on account of referring to her as 'freaking'.

ScarletWhat's shocking is that I hadn't noticed you weren't. Maybe I'm the one who ought to be rectified. With the spiky end of a pineapple.

Old KittyThe terrible thing is that I have to live with it — two of them, in fact.

It's one thing to come face to face with les yeux terrible while gazing at a monitor, but I have to tell you, when one of them pops from your skull on a fibrous stalk and begins eyeing up the other one suspiciously, it doesn't exactly make for a pleasant spectacle (though spectacles would, of course, prevent this from happening to some extent).

Whirl, dear, you have been on my Google feed for, like, forever. Like Sylvia, I never thought to actually click "Follow" until I started ramping up my own blog and quickly went out to rectify my oversight where I'd oversighted.

So what do we as Followers and pre-Followers demand from you, our Followee?

Easy.

More pictures of you in a kilt.

And more voice.

Mmm. Yes.

The handsome headshot and new layout is a good start. Nice renovations!

Sorry, Whirl. You're on my list of regular blogs to visit, but I've never clicked the "follow" button. So I did just now.

You have 39 followers now - on one blog.

I have SIX blogs. My biggest following is 17 (two of my blogs have ONE follower haha) - and that's the blog you and I share with six other people. And you, and I, and the six other people are all followers. So, really, there are only nine.

Not many have officially followed you, but I expect you have a lot more readers than you realize.

Mine - well, I think I need to be drunk before I spend any more time talking about them.

If you're buying, I'm all for it. (Not only don't I have many followers, my coffers aren't exactly full either.)

Wow, what a coincidence! I just had my two year blogthday as well. I have one follower. One. Note that the one follower is not posted (who wants to tell the world that they have one follower?) but this does bring up an interesting question; if you have way more followers than I and we have been blogging for the same amount of time, do you have more followers because you display their shiny eager faces, or because my space aliens detect extreme suckitude more accurately than your space aliens?

Yep. That's exactly what happens, Geoff. But you get this hot hot hot saggyterios to play with. Aren't you thrilled?

Lots of 'new' followers who've been following you for awhile. I cleaned up my follow act not that long ago when I started using Reader. Now I'm following and reading everybody, but hardly commenting. Is that progress?

SylviaIndeed, you are the Rolls Royce of followers, in spite of your cerebral vacuum.

PolyhogHave you been reading one of Delia's cookbooks?

PhoenixHopefully, there should be more vocals soon — WIP extracts, yodelling etc. Not sure about the kilt though. Technically, it's only a blanket. And technically, I look a twat in it.

BevieThere's certainly a whole bunch of interested people in Russia who check in on a regular basis, mainly to look at the Noddy Holder's Cock post I ran over Christmas. Maybe he's big over there, I don't know.

KierstenOkay, it's a deal. We'll do a swap later on in the summer. It'll be like spending the day in one another's clothes. Only more tasteful. Best of luck with the nefarious plans.

PeteOkay, if you can let me know when you finish work for Easter, I'll arrange to have you picked up in a sedan chair borne by eunuchs. Then anyone trying to kick you will have a hard time of it — unless it's the all-Wisconsin wheeled trampolining squad, though I hear they're holidaying in Australia. Some kangaroo retreat thing.

UberpolyhogHe can have latvialovedoll1877 if he likes...

AnnFollowers have been known to vanish from the widget en mass as the result of a glitsch. Very disconcerting.

MotherMight be because I expose my kneecaps from time to time. As for the face thing, I thought it would be better slung up in the top left hand margin than my backside.

SarahI'm getting a little annoyed with Blogger reader as it's started rearranging my subscriptions and resurrecting ones I've cancelled. As a result, nothing is in any order. So I've taken to using a neat little prog called Snarfer.

I just started following you because I happen to follow Kiersten White on Twitter and she mentioned you, so I had to click the link. I really like this blog so far. It has already made me snort with laughter three times and I have only read two of your posts. I hope that you receive a flood of new followers in the next few days. By the way, what type of books do you write? YA? Adult? Or a variety? Maybe it's mentioned on your blog somewhere, but I am much too lazy to check.

Mary ClareI dub thee Woman of Quality Cyberlinks. Having someone jet over from Kiersten's is like discovering a secret Narnia-like link to Olympus in your smalls drawer.

As for the snorting, I know this blog has already helped a number of people go on to achieve great success in the fledgling sport of clothes peg hurling — you know, where you clip a clothes peg to your nose, snort, and see how far you can blast the peg.

As for my work, it's definitely not YA, though I'm still not sure what to call it. There's fun, there's darkness, there's a hint of the paranormal, and more than a modicum of the absurd. The new blogger templates have a tab facility for adding extra pages, so hopefully over the next few weeks, I'll add info about my writing, bio etc. Possibly even showcase a few weird hats...

It's a lovely mug! But yesterday, being The first of april and all, I assumed it was a picture of the corner librarian or something.I'm not officially following any blogs, but that doesn't mean I don't read 'em.

Old KittyLooks like you just talked yourself into winning some chocolate. My offer of a virtual blogger No Fear blogger award also still stands. If you want to email me your details, I'll arrange to have your prizes sent out to you.

NOTE: Only Old Kitty may demand chocolate from me and succeed. And then, only once. If anyone is desperate for chocolate, I'm sure Protrudio will be along here soon enough.